l--will she come?"

"Yes," said O'Neill, wearily, "she will come." Regnault made a gentle
gesture of thanks and closed his eyes. His long fingers slid on the
ivory beads and his lips moved. O'Neill gazed down on him with a
weakness of bewilderment; his landmarks were shifting.

He was standing thus, looking in mere absence of mind, when a
footfall beyond the screen reached his ear.

"Oh Lord!" he cried.

It was she. As his eyes fell upon her she was letting fall her long
cloak. It lay on the floor about her feet, and she towered over it,
in superb scarlet. Against her background of shadow her neck and arms
and the abundance of her breast shone like silver. Ere he could go to
her she waved him away with a sweep of a naked arm. A hand was on her
hip, and she moved towards the bed with the sliding gait of the
Spanish dancer.

It was an affair of an instant. Buscarlet and Truelove hastened upon
his exclamation, and Buscarlet, stumbling, brushed against the
screen. He caught at it to save it from falling, and the bed was bare
to the room. Regnault and his wife looked into each other's face.
She, undisturbed by the suddenness of it all, held yet her posture of
the stage, glowing in her silk with something dangerous and ominous
about her, something blatant and yet potent, like a knife in a
stocking. It was as though she wrought in violence for the admiration
of the man on the bed. He, on his elbow, turned to her a thin face
with lips parted and trembling; for an intolerable instant they hung,
mute and motionless. Then, slowly, she turned with one foot sliding,
and the light of the lamp was full on her face.

It seemed to break the tense spell; Regnault's face was writhing; of
a sudden he burst into shrill, hideous laughter, and his right hand
flung out and pointed at her. None moved; none could. His laugh rang
and broke, and rang again, outrageous and uncontrollable, merry and
hearty and hateful. The woman, at the first peal of it, started and
stood as though stricken to stone; they could see her shrivel under
the blast of it, shrivel and shrink and age.

Then, as though it had been overdue and long awaited, the laugh
checked and choked. It freed them from the thrall that held them.
Regnault's head fell back.

"The amyl!" cried O'Neill, and they were all about him. "The amyl--
where is it?"

Regnault's face was a mask of paralyzed pain; but the silver patch-
box that held the capsules was not on the table. It took